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Consider the case where you have available to you four equally productive workers. Since each has been on the job for a different amount of time, they earn different daily wages:

Larry at $6 per day
Curly at $3 per day
Moe at $7 per day
Shemp at $5 per day

There are also five tasks, each requiring only one worker, that can only be done today that provide you with a financial benefit:

Iron Pants for $10
Blend Scotch for $8
Serve Dinner Guests for $6
Unpack the Mummy for $4
Save the Queen for $2

There is no financial benefit if you perform these tasks tomorrow. Consider the optimal allocation of tasks. Please treat ties in favor of production.

What is your net benefit from optimally employing the Stooges?

Question options:

$9

Other

$10

$7

Answer: Net benefit from optimally employing the Stooges is $10.
The best optimal allocation of tasks would be:

Worker

Cost

Work

Benefit

Net

Curly

$3

Iron Pants

$10

$7

Shemp

$5

Blend Scotch

$8

$3

Larry

$6

Serve Dinner Guests

$6

$0

Moe

$7

Unpack the Mummy

$4

-$3

The workers are ranked from the lowest wage to the highest wage they can earn. Whereas the works are ranked from the highest benefit to the lowest. This will maximize the net benefit from employing the stooges. If all four stooges are employed according to the table, the net benefit will be $7 + $3 + $0 - $3 = $7. Since Saving the queen only benefits $2 which is lower than any of the worker's wage, this work will not be done. According to the table, Unpacking the mummy is needed to be done by Moe, however the work provides negative benefits, therefore this work should not be done. Serving dinner guests provided zero benefits, therefore it should not be done as well. If only Curly and Shemp are employed, the net benefit will be $7 +$3 = $10, which is the highest possible net benefit.